Father Pitt

Tag: Houses

Some Houses on Arlington Avenue, Arlington

Arlington is a forgotten neighborhood whose business district has almost disappeared, but it nevertheless has many pleasant residences on its back streets. The spine street, however, was Arlington Avenue, and because it was the main street of the neighborhood, it was where the grandest houses went up. Some of these houses are in very good shape; some are abandoned and being eaten by jungle; and some are in between. The house above is in good shape except for wanting a bit of paint, and its original woodwork is intact.

The round-ended porch is a work of art that ought to be preserved. Father Pitt wonders whether it always had brick pillars, or whether it was originally supported by wooden columns to match the pilasters in the rear. At any rate, the brick pillars are old enough that they match the house brick exactly.

This frame house could also use a bit of paint, but much of its woodwork is well preserved.

This double house is in excellent shape, and almost completely original except for the asphalt shingles on the roof.

Next to that tidy double is a house that probably cannot be rescued. It has been neglected for so long that it never even had a chance to be shrouded in aluminum siding, so its original woodwork, crumbling though it may be, is still there for us to document.

And finally, next to that abandoned house, this neat and well-kept Pittsburgh Foursquare.

We should note that city planning maps make Arlington Avenue the border between Arlington and the South Side Slopes. This is one of those cases where the city’s dogmatic insistence on main streets as neighborhood borders leads to obvious absurdity: it means that the Arlington Playground, Arlington Field, Arlington Spray Park, Arlington Recreation Center, Arlington Baseball Field, and so forth, are not in Arlington. In this case, old Pa Pitt ignores the city’s boundaries and speaks of “Arlington” the way Pittsburghers have always meant it.

Cameras: Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z6; Sony Alpha 3000 with Industar f/3.5 50mm lens.

June 26, 2024
A Stroll on Markham Drive, Mount Lebanon

Markham Drive in Mount Lebanon is not yet included in the Mount Lebanon Historic District, but it ought to be. It is a street of architecturally distinctive houses, mostly from the 1930s, that are in an extraordinarily fine state of preservation, at least externally. We have already seen one of them: the “Transition House” designed by Brandon Smith to entice conservative home-buyers to accept modern construction methods. Here is a generous album from the rest of the street.

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June 7, 2024
Dwight Avenue Houses in the Dormont Park Plan

The Dormont Park plan was laid out in the late 1920s along three “mere” streets—Windermere, Earlsmere, and Grassmere Avenues, each a block long, along with the intersecting parts of Dormont and Kelton Avenues. Just before the Second World War, the Bupp-Salkeld Company added a row of thirteen houses on Dwight Avenue, parallel to the meres. They are mostly well preserved, and they make up a small museum of middle-class styles at the end of the interwar era.

It would look better with real shutters, but the stonework is still outstandingly picturesque.

Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z6.

May 26, 2024
The Southern Side of Western Avenue, Allegheny West

Western Avenue in Allegheny West is an eclectic mix of buildings, from grand mansions to humble rowhouses to Art Deco storefronts. Here are some of the buildings on the southern side of the street, photographed late in the day when the sun was glancing across them.

This house, now the Parador Inn, was one of the fine houses put back in top shape by serial restorationist Joedda Sampson. It has a detailed history at the Allegheny West site.

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

May 25, 2024
Transition House, Mount Lebanon

What, you may ask, is a “transition house”? It is a house designed to look traditional but use the most modern construction methods available in 1936. The idea was that the public could be induced to accept modern construction if it came without the modernist offenses against traditional aesthetics. Architect Brandon Smith—best remembered for some extravagant mansions in Fox Chapel—gave it all the decorative flourishes a 1930s suburbanite might expect from a “Colonial,” but under the stone and brick were super-modern materials developed at the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research.

Our information and the architect’s drawing above come from an article about the house in the Pittsburgh Press, published when the house was under construction in 1936. The whole article will interest a few architectural historians, so we have transcribed it below.
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May 24, 2024
Columbus Avenue, Manchester

The far end of Manchester still has some work to do. A few houses have been restored; about an equal number are abandoned and condemned. A few have been restored, and then abandoned and condemned. A few have been renovated in a way that seems regrettable. We can only hope that someone will rescue the houses that need rescuing.

It is always especially sad when we see that the last thing residents were able to do to their house was decorate it for Christmas.

Here we have a frame house refurbished to be habitable and comfortable. “Multipane” windows were used, of course, because is there any other kind? (Old Pa Pitt was shocked to visit a house with modern “multipane” windows and discover that the “panes” are really just cartoon lines drawn in plastic across a single sheet of glass.)

This house suffered a fire years ago and appears to have been abandoned since then. At least some minimal work has been done to stabilize it. The dormer is distinctive; it would have been more so with its original decorative woodwork.

We find some of the houses in better shape as we approach the western end of the street.

May 23, 2024
Spanish Mission Style in Sunset Hills

Sunset Hills is a Mount Lebanon plan developed in the 1920s and 1930s. Most of the houses are more modest than the ones in Mission Hills or Beverly Heights. Many of them, however, are fine designs by their architects, and in particular several are among the best examples of the Spanish Mission style in Pittsburgh.

Does your garden shed match the architecture of your house? And does it have two floors?

This house is almost a traditional Pennsylvania farmhouse, but with Mission arched porch and stucco.

Canon PowerShot A540.

May 22, 2024
Some Houses in Oakmont

Oakmont is very proud of its Victorian houses, most of which bear plaques with “circa” (in the common American meaning of “here comes a date”) and the date of the construction. But many other styles are represented in Oakmont, from Edwardian through 1920s fairy-tale and 1960s modern—and many of these other houses are excellent examples of their own styles. Here is a little album that will suggest the variety of domestic architecture to be found in Oakmont.

Cameras: Sony Alpha 3000; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

May 18, 2024
Crescent Drive in Beverly Heights, Mount Lebanon

Crescent Drive is just a block and a half long, but it has the broad assortment of styles that makes the whole Beverly Heights plan such a delight to wander in. Here’s an album of houses on the street.

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May 16, 2024
Robinson House, Dutchtown

This magnificent home was built for the Robinson family, probably in the 1890s, on a prominent corner facing the East Commons. It replaced an earlier brick house that had stood on the same spot. Locals tell us it is magnificent on the inside as well. One claims to have a mantel from this house in his own house: the Robinson house spent decades as a funeral home, and when the owners tore out interior walls, they offered some of the remains to the neighbors.

May 13, 2024